Have you read a great book recently?

Stories. We all spend our lives reading them, telling them, and listening to them. About this and that. About people and places. But some stories are so good, we wish that they would never end. They are so gripping that we will go without sleep to read a little bit more. Some stories bring us laughter. Some will bring us tears. But isn't that what a great book does? Makes us feel. Books that are so powerful, they really are with us forever.

This year promises us some great stories. The schedules are packed with debuts, both literary and commercial. Plus new titles from household names and other admired authors.

The debut which I am hugely excited about and can't wait for everyone to read is the brilliant thriller from S J Watson, Before I Go To Sleep, narrated by a woman who cannot retain her memories for longer than a day.

White Heat by Melanie McGrath is a superb debut novel and one that reminded me of Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow for it's originality, witty, intelligent and unconventional character Edie. On Craig Island, a vast landscape of ice north of the Arctic Circle, three travellers are hunting duck. Among them is expert Inuit hunter and guide, Edie Kiglatuk; a woman born of this harsh, beautiful terrain. The two men are tourists, experiencing Arctic life in the raw, but when one of the men is shot dead in mysterious circumstances, the local Council of Elders in the tiny settlement of Autisaq is keen to dismiss it as an accident.

Plague Child by Peter Ransley is the first in a trilogy set during the English Civil War. Tom Kneave doesn't know of his real background, he was rescued from the Oxford plague pit as a baby and raised by a poor man in London. But 15 years later he himself finds himself back at his birthplace, piecing together the few clues he has.

David Hewson's Nic Costa novels are a real treat for fans of Italy and especially Rome. The Fallen Angel has Detective Nic Costa facing his hardest case yet. We have commissioned a numbered edition of 250 copies. If you haven't tried David Hewson before. Now is the time.

We have managed to get more copies of our December Book of the Month signed. Snowdrops by A. D. Miller is deservedly receiving exceptional reviews.

'A tremendously assured, cool, complex, slow-burn of a novel and a bleak and superbly atmospheric portrait of modern Russia.' --William Boyd. Snowdrops is an intensely riveting psychological drama that unfolds over the course of one Moscow winter, as a young Englishman's moral compass is spun by the seductive opportunities revealed to him by a new Russia: a land of hedonism and desperation, corruption and kindness, magical dachas and debauched nightclubs; a place where secrets - and corpses - come to light only when the deep snows start to thaw - Snowdrops is a chilling story of love and moral freefall: of the corruption, by a corrupt society, of a corruptible young man. It is taut, intense and has a momentum as irresistible to the reader as the moral danger that first enchants, then threatens to overwhelm, its narrator.

The Facility is our current Book of the Month. You can read my review of this book, here. Also, there is a more information about the author and his favourite five books! If you are able, come along the launch party here at Goldsboro Books. Details here.


We have many more signed first editions available on our website. Do take the time to browse here

Don't forget to buy, read and collect!
Sincerely,
Dave
David Headley
Goldsboro Books Limited

One to Watch

The Oracle of Stamboul

by Michael Davi Lukas

The Oracle of Stamboul

Exclusive Signed First Editions*

A magical historical novel about an astonishing eight year old girl in the last days of the Ottoman Empire.

It is 1877, on the shores of the Black Sea, and the omens for the newborn Eleanora Cohen are hardly promising. Not only does her mother die in childbirth, but her village is being attacked by the Tsar's Royal Cavalry. However, despite this bad beginning, a sour stepmother and a traumatic journey in the hold of a ship, young Eleanora grows into a remarkably clever but very engaging child. And when a heartbreaking tragedy leaves her marooned in Istanbul, where spies and boarded-up harems and sudden death are as much a part of life as delicious spices, Paris fashions and rosewater, it is Eleanora's extraordinary courage and character which lead her straight to the Sultan's court, and to her salvation.

Our Price £12.99

Order a signed first edition.

*Signed first editions will be Exclusive to Goldsboro Books in the UK.